Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • May 20, 2013
As previously noted here, e-cigarettes are winning over American smokers. E-cigs’ vapor of nicotine, water and propylene glycol is vastly safer than smoke, and these products satisfy smokers’ behavioral cues. Marketers have enjoyed a regulatory moratorium since federal Judge Richard Leon blocked the FDA’s attempt to regulate e-cigs as drug-delivery devices in 2008 and 2009. [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • May 10, 2013
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2003 prison smoking ban produced a pervasive black market, where single cigarettes cost inmates $30, and a pack runs as high as $200, according to the Daily News. That might sound shocking, but I predicted those unintended consequences nine years ago in a column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, after [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • May 2, 2013
One of the longstanding federal warnings on smokeless tobacco is: “This product can cause gum disease and tooth loss.” This warning has no scientific basis. I previously discussed a study from Sweden concluding that snus use was not associated with gum disease. A 2012 study by the same research group concluded that “snus use does [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • April 29, 2013
A new study from British American Tobacco scientists answers that fascinating question, providing valuable information for consumers and regulators. Snus contains nicotine and other constituents that make tobacco satisfying, but it also contains contaminants, albeit in vanishingly small amounts. It is useful to know how much of these constituents users extract and consume during typical [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • April 18, 2013
The American Cancer Society continues to misinform smokers about vastly safer options. With chapters in nearly every county across the nation, the ACS is a powerful tobacco harm reduction opponent. Since it cannot argue against tobacco harm reduction on the facts, the ACS resorts to false and deceptive claims. For example, last week, the House [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • April 12, 2013
Tobacco harm reduction opponents have myriad rationales for withholding from smokers vital information about safer products. One common objection is that smokers will become dual users (of both cigarettes and smoke-free substitutes), and never achieve abstinence. While scientific evidence rebuts such dual use allegations, tobacco opponents are not dissuaded. They further claim that safer tobacco [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • April 5, 2013
My research group published survey data in 2010 documenting that a highly educated population (faculty at the University of Louisville) misperceived the health risks of smokeless tobacco use compared with smoking. Half of survey participants incorrectly believed that smokeless tobacco use confers general health risks that are equal to or greater than smoking; the misperception [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • March 28, 2013
When I published my book on tobacco harm reduction in 1995, Dr. Dean Edell described my strategy as “credible, logical and eminently do-able.” Risk expert W. Kip Viscusi (now a distinguished professor at Vanderbilt University) wrote that “Dr. Brad Rodu’s intent is not to abolish tobacco use, but to expand the range of consumer options [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • March 21, 2013
In my lectures on tobacco harm reduction, I compare the properties of nicotine with those of caffeine (see slides at left). Despite some obvious differences, the drugs have remarkably similar effects. I have just found a study from 2006 (from the journal Experimental Physiology) showing that “nicotine administration during moderate-intensity exercise delays fatigue, with a [...]
Op Ed
Tobacco Truth • March 13, 2013
I have been critical of the American Dental Association’s distribution of misinformation about smokeless tobacco and tobacco harm reduction (discussed here and here). New ADA brochures on mouth cancer and smokeless tobacco show significant improvement over their past publications. The new pamphlet on mouth (and throat) cancer accurately describes the disease as occurring “most often [...]
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
